The chamber smelled faintly of lavender oil and starch. Candlelight softened the silk hanging nearby—a dress the color of morning frost. It shimmered where the flame touched it: a pale blue cotehardie, its fitted bodice embroidered with threads of silver that caught and scattered the light like rain. Pearls traced its neckline; gemstones glimmered where her heart would rest.
Her stomach turned at the sight of it.
What would her mother say, seeing such finery? That her daughter looked like a lady again — or like a doll dressed for display? Since the day soldiers had taken her from the square, she’d heard no word from them. Not from her mother’s trembling voice, nor Lucan’s boyish laugh. She imagined the cottage now: the door unlatched to let the smoke out, her mother kneading bread in silence, her father mending tools he no longer needed. Two figures alone in the dim light, and no reason to expect her back.
The brush slowed. “My lady?” The servant’s voice was careful, small. “Would you lift your head, please?”
Elowen obeyed. The brush resumed its rhythm—whisper, pull, twist.
When the laces began to tighten at her back, she asked, “Do you know where I’m being taken?”
The girl hesitated, eyes flicking toward the door. “The Feast of Crowns still goes on,” she murmured. “And with a gown like this…” She bit her lip. “It must be the Banquet of Daggers.”
Elowen frowned. “The Banquet of what?”
The servant bent closer, voice dropping to a thread. “It’s what they call the king’s closing supper. No blades on the tables—just sharper tongues.”
She worked faster, hands steady now, as if talk helped her forget they were trembling. “It comes after the parade and the games, once the city’s gone quiet. That’s when the nobles start cutting each other to pieces with smiles. The rest of us just refill the wine and pray we don’t get noticed.”
Elowen watched her in the mirror. “Cutting each other how?”
“At the tables, my lady.” The girl’s gaze stayed on the corset strings. “Every toast’s a trap. Every compliment means something it shouldn’t. I’ve seen a jest draw more blood than a duel.”
Elowen tried to laugh, but it died before it left her throat.
“Only the highest lords sit near the king,” the servant went on, fingers deftly tying the ribbon. “The further your seat, the colder the favor. You’ll know which is which by who smiles too wide.”
Elowen’s stomach turned. “And the games?”
“Oh, they laugh,” the girl said softly. “But it’s never funny for long. I’ve seen a lady dared to drink a goblet of vinegar till she fainted. A knight forced to kneel and beg forgiveness from a chair. Once, someone didn’t get back up after the laughter stopped.”
The laces went still. The servant’s breath trembled near her ear. “They say no one’s ever killed there,” she whispered, “but the hall’s colder than the coliseum when it’s done.”
She tied the final knot and met Elowen’s gaze in the mirror—finally, directly.
“So, my lady,” she said quietly, “keep your eyes down, your cup half full, and your silence sharper than theirs.”
The Grand Hall closed around her like a jaw.
Elowen exhaled slowly, the sound barely audible against the swell of music and chatter. Heat pressed down from chandeliers heavy with wax—tears of flame dripping onto the marble below. The air reeked of roasted meat, clove wine, and incense so thick it stung her eyes. Each breath carried too much—scent, noise, color—until the world blurred at the edges.
Her knees still trembled from the riot’s chaos. Every heartbeat seemed to echo in her throat.
Roderic’s arm was firm beneath her hand, offered out of formality—escort to guest—but she found herself holding tighter than she meant to, fingers curling into the embroidered sleeve until her knuckles whitened. He said nothing, merely adjusted his stride to anchor hers.
The hall quieted by degrees, a hush rippling through gilt and silk as they entered. Whispers hissed like steam escaping from cracks.
Shield.
Witch.
Thief of prophecy.
The words darted across tables, sly and glinting as knives.
Elowen kept her chin high, though her breath snagged on every murmur. The arena’s cage was gone, yet the same trembling lived in her chest. Only now the beasts smiled with jeweled teeth.
The servants led them toward their seats. Around her, crystal goblets caught the torchlight, throwing fractured rainbows across the tablecloths. Perfumed nobles leaned close, their laughter brittle as glass. The hum of conversation thickened, sweet and stinging like honey turned sour.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
A duchess at the next table lifted her cup. “Your verse was charming, my lord,” she told her companion in syruped tones, “though I’ve heard finer rhymes from onion peddlers.”
Laughter rippled.
“At least he dares rhyme,” came another voice. “Unlike your husband, who only dares breathe when you finish speaking.”
The laughter grew sharper. Even their amusement drew blood.
Elowen’s gaze flicked across the hall. Silk in every color shimmered under the torches—gowns so heavy with jewels they seemed built to drag their wearers down. She could almost smell the rot beneath the perfume, the faint sweetness of fruit spoiling on silver plates.
And under it all—something else.
A faint, low hum, almost below hearing. The windows trembled slightly with each note of the musicians’ flutes. For a moment she thought it was her imagination—until she saw the chandeliers sway. The breath of the storm beyond the walls, the one Eryndor had warned of, pressed faintly against the glass. Even here, within marble and laughter, the world trembled.
The hall’s tone changed in an instant. The laughter faltered, replaced by the charged hush of expectation. Heads turned toward the entrance.
She didn’t need to be announced. Everyone already knew who arrived. Lady Serenya of the Eastern Court.
She stood framed by the door’s light—masked, radiant, the perfect embodiment of Eastern grace. Even her stillness commanded motion; the hall seemed to bend toward her as though drawn by invisible threads.
Elowen’s stomach tightened. The woman moved like poured silk, her mask catching and reflecting the torchlight.
Without hurry, Serenya reached her table and bent toward a young lord near the dais. Her voice carried—clear, liquid, deliberate.
“Walls do crack when pressed,” she murmured, “shall we see if hers will?”
The young lord leapt up, eager to please. His goblet flashed in the torchlight.
“A toast!” he cried, voice buoyed by wine and the approval of his betters. “To the thief of prophecy! May she not steal the breath from us tonight!”
Laughter exploded—bright, ugly.
“Guard your goblets!” shouted a baron. “She may drink the wind from them!”
A lady fanned herself with mock alarm. “Careful—her eyes are clouding! We’ll need boots when the storm breaks.”
The sound rolled over Elowen like heat. Her cheeks burned. Her hands gripped the edge of the table until the pearls on her sleeves bit into her skin. The chants of the riot still echoed somewhere behind her ribs, colliding with these new voices until she couldn’t tell whether they called her Shield or Witch.
The laughter struck her like stones.
For a heartbeat, she saw them differently—the jeweled masks, the trembling smiles behind them, the hunger that turned kindness to spectacle.
They weren’t laughing because they were strong. They laughed because it was safer to wound than to be wounded.
Every jest was a shield. Every cruel smile, a plea to belong. She’d seen this before in the crowd—the same faces, only painted finer.
It wasn’t justice that moved them. It was fear wearing the mask of righteousness.
Serenya bent close again to her companion, her mask tilting as she whispered loudly enough to carry. “See how she changes colors? Offer her a crown quickly, before she blows us all away.”
The noble, drunk on attention, reached under the table and produced a crude crown—tin hammered into shape, glass beads winking like counterfeit gems. He raised it high for all to see.
“For the thief of prophecy!” he declared. “A crown she cannot steal—for it is already hers!”
Elowen froze. The hall roared. The crown glittered in the light like mock sunlight on dirty water. She wanted—just for a breath—to snatch it and fling it back in his face.
Her fingers twitched.
But Roderic moved first.
He reached across the table and plucked the tin crown from the man’s hand as though it were a toy misplaced by a child. His composure was unnerving—voice flat, precise, dangerous in its calm.
“How generous,” he said. “And how fitting—for the jesting table, not for her head.”
The laughter died. His tone carried no heat, yet finality clung to it like frost. He set the crown down among the trenchers and spilled crumbs, as though dismissing a piece of refuse.
A muscle in his jaw tightened. He didn’t look at the noble, only at Elowen—enough to see her fists trembling in her lap, her confusion, the fragile restraint holding her still.
He sighed inwardly.
What began as penance had curdled into pageant. Once they gathered to remember peace; now they gathered to forget it. The hall reeked of roses and pride, and Roderic could almost hear the stones themselves grow tired.
Now, watching Elowen’s face pale under the torchlight, Roderic saw the truth of what his realm had become.
A king forced to smile while his crown was mocked. Subjects who mistook cruelty for wit. And a girl barely freed from chains, seated in the midst of them as their newest sport.
This was the kingdom’s disease—beauty masking rot, laughter hiding fear.
A silver goblet was pressed into her hand—its rim etched with roses, its wine dark as garnet.
“To the Crown Above,” said the lord with the ringed fingers, his smile slick as oil. “Surely Elyon will favor His chosen, if she drinks with us.”
A ripple of laughter wound through the table.
Elowen lifted the goblet halfway. Her pulse thundered. The scent—too sweet, almost floral—reminded her of rotting orchards near her old home. And beneath that sweetness, something metallic and bitter, like the breath of storm.
She smiled—not warmly, but with a terrible calm.
“I’m not impressed by your titles, or your clothes, or your slander,” she said softly. “I had those once, and they vanished overnight.”
The laughter stilled.
“I bleed as you do. And my day will turn to dust, as will yours. But when I look to the stars, I know this: I have earned nothing. Deserved nothing. I am nothing—and yet, I am given the chance to live.”
She turned the goblet over. The red liquid spilled across the silk tablecloth, hissing faintly where it touched silver. A thin curl of smoke rose—the scent sharp and acrid.
“And that,” she whispered, “is what I intend to do.”
The poison sizzled against the gold plate. A servant gasped. For the first time that night, the court was utterly silent.
Outside, thunder rolled. The chandeliers trembled, their flames bowing to an unseen wind. For an instant, all the hall’s perfume and laughter seemed to vanish—leaving only the faint sound of rain beginning to fall against the high windows.
Eryndor, from his seat among the lesser nobles, closed his eyes briefly. He felt it—the shift in the air, the wall stirring again. Every act of cruelty in this kingdom fed it. Every humiliation, every jest turned weapon. And every act of defiance, however small, made it tremble.
When Elowen looked up, her gaze met Serenya’s across the hall.
The lady’s smile had not faltered—but her knuckles had gone white around her goblet.
The musicians hesitated, waiting for permission to resume. Then, with a gesture from the King, the violins began again—soft, uneasy.
Roderic rose. The scrape of his chair against marble sounded almost like a blade drawn from a sheath.
The hall watched as he stepped from his place.
And then, with deliberate grace, he extended his hand—
toward Elowen.
Ask. The archive might answer back.
What to Expect:
- Sci-fi mystery
- Character-driven plot
- Slow-burn investigation
- Brothers on opposite sides
- Cool powers!
- Optional meta layers
- Multi-POV cast
- Emotional gut punches & sarcasm
Hear from Lev below. These artifacts are your first clue!
[Lev’s Note]: I may not be part of a prophecy, but I am trying to stay alive. Mostly because my sister decided she wanted the truth. The truth someone’s been burying for three centuries.
We call them Enigma. Someone who wants us planet-bound. Someone who’s manipulated and murdered their way through history to make sure we never leave. Someone tied to those two documents on the table above.